Well everyone, this is it, I'm off home to the grand ol' US of A for my 7 week holiday in just under 12 hours but got this done so figured I would post it before jumping countries. ( thanks all for your reviews and I'm glad that you're enjoying the story as it goes along, I have been seriously concidering re-naming it though because there's a lot that happens after visiting Planet Hell (an event that takes place rather soon as far as chapter time). Any name ideas would be welcome because I'm just not sure that the name I have now fits as far as the story so far. Shrugs.

Well I'm off. Please drop me a review, I love reading what you all think.

Kayla

Chapter 10: Damaged Goods.

"What the hell did you say happened to her?" Jack could hear Sam's voice through the haze in her head, the ship's security officer sounded annoyed and anxious and Jack didn't know why, she wasn't dead. Jack forced her eyes open, her head was pounding but her shoulder was numb and her side didn't hurt as badly as it had before.

What the hell had happened after she had passed out?

"All I saw was her hitting the ground hard, like she had hit a brick wall." Riddick answered her, his voice a low threatening growl. "But there's a hand print on her upper arm."

"I have eyes you know." Sam snapped at him.

"Riddick?" She whispered slowly blinking a couple of times, trying to pull herself together but getting nowhere. She tired to concentrate but it was taking her time to work past the fog and when she did all she felt were pinpricks of pain.

"I'm here." He put a hand on her forehead and she closed her eyes again letting herself pull comfort from the fact that he was there. She took a deep breath through her mouth and then her jaw muscles clenched as she forced her eyes open again and looked up at Riddick's face. He looked a little concerned but she couldn't force a reassuring smile to her face, she was too groggy.

"Can you tell me what happened Jackie?" Sam asked in a soothing voice as she felt a prick in one arm. She jerked her arm away but she knew it was too late, whatever Sam had put in that needle was running through her veins. Why hadn't Riddick stopped her? He knew she didn't like needles or mind numbing drugs.

"Had a feeling that something was wrong so I started checking the ship, only I had been running I think and I was grabbed and pulled backward. I hit the floor and then, well he came after me." She said feeling suddenly clearer and slightly sick. But the nausea only got worse, building up in her throat. "I think I'm going to be sick." She said suddenly sitting up and forcing herself to run through to the bathroom where she was violently sick in the toilet. He was right behind her, one arm slung around her middle supporting her as she retched and the other hand holding her hair out of her face.

Sam shook her head; it was the last thing she would have ever expected to see. She knew that often big men who appeared tough were actually quite gentle and caring but that didn't fit with what she had heard of Riddick. To see a known killer, a man who was undisputedly lethal, so carefully holding the retching girl was almost too strange to see and believe. There was something about Jack that he seemed to be drawn to and Sam was sure that it was more then just wanting to keep her alive.

"It's alright Jack." He murmured softly in her ear as she took a couple of strangled breaths and stopped being sick.

"Don't fucking tell me it's alright, it's not fucking alright." She said, one of her hands gripping the arm that he had wrapped tightly around her middle, her fingernails digging into his skin leaving little half moon imprints as she retched again.

Jack had always been so jumpy, a little paranoid and as tough a chick as they came but even so she hadn't expected that was because of being dragged around and trained by a man like Riddick. Well it wasn't as though she could see Jack's time with Riddick as a time when he raised her. But the way he was with her, quiet and protective, the out of place tenderness and the seemingly out of character smile that he had offered Jack at one point couldn't help but make her wonder of she had judged him too quickly.

After a few minutes Jack finally stopped being sick and slumped back in the big man's arms. He was supporting her whole weight and murmuring things in her ear that Sam couldn't hear as she moistened a cloth and moved into the room. Jack gratefully accepted the damp cloth that Sam handed her, she wiped her mouth, her breathing still a little heavy and her stomach muscles hurting. "I hate being sick." She groaned but a faint smile passed across her lips as she leaned her head back on Riddick's shoulder, resting for a moment. The normal Jack was resurfacing.

"Now that that's out of you, you'll start feeling better pretty quickly." Sam handed her a glass of water, which the younger girl sipped on before flushing the toilet and pushing Riddick away so she could stand up and walk back into the main room but he was only half a step behind her and a good thing he was too because she seemed extremely unsteady on her feet.

"I'm fine already Sam, a little bit sore and tired but fine." Jack shook her head as she lowered herself into a sitting position on the bed feeling like some sort of giant wimp, passing out and being sick because of a little bit of pain. "We really don't need to tell Captain Manor about this." She said closing her eyes and rubbing her temples with her fingers trying to make the thumping go away.

"He already knows Jack. Said that you are off duty until it's time to land The Aurora. If you're not feeling better by then, Danny and I will take the cruiser down." Sam smiled apologetically. "I was with him when Candace came and got me."

"Great. Now I really am in deep shit." Jack shook her head but then stopped, the action hurting her already pounding head.

"You alright?" Riddick asked, the note of concern back in his voice.

"Don't you dare start babying me." Jack snapped at him, taking her annoyance about the Captain knowing of her condition out on him. If anyone could understand why she was upset then Riddick probably would but she was too pissed off to care at that moment. "Don't you dare baby me." He grunted, a sound full of displeasure. He knew as well as she did that he had never babied her.

"I'm not babying you."

"I said stop it Riddick!" Jack looked at him and Sam shook her head. It was obvious who Jack had learned that look from. Riddick glared right back at her until she looked away and then left the room. They seemed like they were good at pissing each other off. At least there would never be a dull day when they were around the pair.

What had Riddick said to her when he had gone to fine Jack after the fight? That he'd already pissed her off twice? Well, that would be the third time and she was smart enough to know that that hadn't been the first time and wouldn't be the last. They knew how to push each other's buttons to well.

"Where did he go?" Sam asked shocked that he had just left like he had, made Jack back down but then left.

"He's standing just outside the door. He didn't go anywhere." Jack answered but there was something in her voice that didn't sound as sure as she was meaning it to sound. This time had she crossed the line?

"It was Candace who got me Jack."

"I know, you already said that." Jack nodded trying to get her friend to get to her point.

"Could she have had something to do with whatever it was the happened or unsettled you?" There was the point.

"The kid wouldn't try and pull that kinda stunt. She's not the right type for that kinda mischief."

"How can you be sure of that?"

"We've spoken. Riddick was coming and it spooked her so she ran off. Her dad was a merc, she knows all about him and apparently she's decided that avoiding him is the best course of action for her to take. He was right when he said that she acts a lot like I did at her age. She's a stinking lippy monster!" Jack blinked a couple of times.

"Thought you said you were worse?"

"I did. I was in a way. I was violent. She's not learned to be violent yet, lippy and slippery, the type to cause a little bit of chaos, yes, but not violent." Jack said rubbing her eyes.

"You sure you're alright Jack?"

"Yeah I'm fine." Jack reached out and gripped her friend's hand as if that proved that she was alright. "How long before we reach planet hell?"

"Twenty-eight hours or so." Sam shrugged. "Give or take a minute or two, you know how that goes."

"Yep." She replied. "If I've got that kinda time then I'm going to take advantage of my short break. Do a couple things for me though eh Sam?" Jack said laying down again and rolling herself up underneath the blankets.

"What?"

"Tell Danny I'll geld him if he even dreams of touching anything in that damned cockpit that he's not meant to, that includes the things that he has any doubt at all about and make sure that Riddick really hasn't left. I kinda need to know he's around." There was an almost pained look on the younger girl's face. Sam didn't need any more explanation then that, Riddick was the one person that Jack was truly dependent on and now that he was back in her life, it seemed that there was no way that Jack was going to let him leave it again.

Sam nodded and gave her a soft smile that was meant to be reassuring. There were times that Jack couldn't help but remind her of a little kid, desperate for love and acceptance, the one thing that could crack her armour. At least Sam now knew why she was the way she was. It wasn't their love and acceptance that she was really after, it was Riddick's, only problem was that she didn't realise that she already had it.

Riddick appeared in the doorway as Jack watched Sam leave. He was frowning, but then, he was always frowning so technically it meant nothing. His eyes swept over her and she closed her eyes again, content that he was around. Whatever it was that Sam had stabbed her with had numbed the pain but she still felt a little bit weak.

"You going to try and sleep for a while this time?" Riddick asked sitting down on the bed next to her, his hand reached out and soon was laying on her forehead again.

"Umhum." She said sleepily not bothering to open her eyes again as she curled up toward him, clutching one pillow tightly and falling back to sleep.

Dr. Johnston sat down in the chair that he had placed in front of the cage in the darkened room. They had had to learn the hard way that those stupid creatures could be killed by direct sunlight or really, light of any kind. They had learned the hard way that what they thought were stupid creatures weren't actually as stupid as they appeared to be on first glance. His night vision goggles gave him a clear view of the creature that was swaying from side to side behind the titanium bars, it's eyes never leaving him.

His colleagues called the creature 'Beau', ironic really. It was anything but beautiful even if it did possess a sort of grace that fascinated the Zoologist. That grace had held a few of his colleagues in a trance when they first saw the creatures. Beau was the strongest of those that they had captured, it had killed the other four creatures and one of his handlers and yet they hadn't done what perhaps they should have done along time ago.

They hadn't killed it.

Beau could see him quite clearly, Dr. Johnston knew it but it no longer scared him. The creature knew that there was no way it could get at him and Dr. Johnston took great pleasure in the realisation too. They had stumbled across the creatures quite by accident. They had been sent down after the investigators of the crash sight had left to do a little bit of scientific research, he had been sent with the because of some bugs found in alcohol bottles.

Only they had found more then just bugs and now he ran the show.

Though their findings hadn't been written up in the reports of the crash investigators yet, it turned out that the girl and the holy man hadn't been lying about how their comrades died. He had seen first hand just how little the creatures left when they fed. Maybe Riddick had had nothing to do with the killings, maybe Riddick was dead. They weren't sure yet. They wouldn't be until they got back to the labs.

Dr. Johnston stood up and walked a couple of feet closer to the beast. It stopped it's shifting and looked at him. The scientists were all weary of the beast and with good justification, it was a killer and could not be tamed but that did not mean that it might in some way be a scientific break through. All he had to do was get Beau off of the planet somehow. Maybe Beau would make him famous or win him some award for the discovery.

"Dr. Johnston. We've had a communication from The Aurora." Kirsten Leal walked into the room. "They're going to land their ship about a mile or so from the crash site. You'll be especially interested in their pilot."

"Why?" He turned and looked at the young research assistant.

"She's been to this planet once before."

"Oh?"

"According to our contact, she was one of the survivors of the crash. Jack, I believe he said her name was and that he would do his best to keep her out of our way but that she could make life difficult if she found out about Beau. She might have a greater understanding of him then even we do and if she was able to tell the captain then there would be no way she would let Beau aboard the ship."

"Understandably so from her statement." Dr. Johnston nodded. He remembered reading it, how haunted the written words seemed to be but there were holes in her story, chunks missing but how haunted those words were, was striking "How long until they arrive?"

"A little over twenty-four hours."

"Start administering the tranc to the creature." He said and then left.
When Jack woke up a number of hours later Riddick was gone and she found that instead of feeling afraid or even slightly annoyed that he had left her, she was actually a little disappointed. She rolled over and smiled when she realised that the space next to her still felt slightly warm and smelted distinctly like him. He hadn't left all that long ago.

She shook her head at her own thoughts, if she didn't pull herself together soon and learn how to control her stupid and raging hormones then she was sentencing herself to a very long flight. She wasn't even the right type for infatuation she told herself firmly and as far as she had found so far, she wasn't the type for love either.

"Lights." Was the first word that she spoke as she sat up and swung her long legs out of the bed, although, none too freely, she felt stiff all over, her escapades in the middle of the night certainly not forgotten. Just because Riddick was around again didn't mean that she had forgotten what light was or that she had left her obsession with light behind her. She hadn't. Light was too important to be so easily forgotten and for the time that he was gone she would soak in the light. It made her feel better, physically and mentally better.

She got up and quickly changed into a pair of black cargo pants that rode low on her hips and a grey tank top that left a strip of her tanned stomach visible, the same type of clothes she wore when lounging about at home. Only after she was dressed did she bother figuring out just how damaged she really was. This assessment was not one that she relished much.

There wasn't a lot of bruising or swelling around her lip or her eye where the cut was and the bruise on her cheek was a nice mix of purple and blue edged with red. Her shoulder felt extremely stiff to the point where she had a hard time moving it while dressing and her right wrist was slightly swollen but nothing that a little rest and support wouldn't fix. Considering the fight and the way she had hit the deck she counted herself lucky that it wasn't hell of a lot worse.

"Damaged goods." She said shaking her head and putting on socks and boots before pulling an ace bandage out of her bag before expertly wrapping her wrist like she had promised Riddick that she would do the night before. Before her little problem in the middle of the night.

What the hell had set her off?

She didn't even know. It was just a feeling; a feeling that something was very wrong and she had gone along blindly with it. The only problem was that in thinking about it now, she knew better. It was the same feeling she had gotten the night that Bret had died, almost instinct but not quite the same idea, it just was. It must have been a dream, she concluded finally, not wanting to think about it any more then she absolutely had to, just a lingering dream that had broke through into her waking thoughts and scared the hell out of her.

Hindsight, she mused, was always a perfect 20/20.

Jack didn't bother turning around as Riddick arrived back in their room. She knew it was him and didn't even flinch. "Thought you'd still be asleep." He said as she put the elasticised clip on her wrap to hold it in place. "You were dead to the world when I left."

"Well I woke up didn't I?" She smiled and stood up moving her shoulder slightly and probing it with her fingers to try and get rid of the stiffness. "Where'd you go?" She asked as she turned around and shock registered on her face as she saw Candace glowering at her from Riddick's tight grasp. The teenager looked angry but it didn't look like she had tried to fight Riddick off, at least she was smart.

"Had some business to take care of. Found this on the way back." He said closing and locking the door into their room before releasing the girl from his hold.

Candace rubbed her shoulder where his fingers had gripped it and glowered between Riddick and Jack. But she was also afraid, behind all the defiance and the anger there was fear, Jack could see it and she had absolutely no doubt that Riddick could smell that same fear. She suddenly felt very tense. Something wasn't right with the whole situation.

"What do you mean, you found her on the way back? Why did you bring her here? Why didn't you just take her back to the passenger's quarters" Jack said motioning for the girl to take the seat that she had just vacated and Candace almost ran to the seat as she eyed Riddick with suspicion, some of her fear fading as she put distance between herself and the much larger man.

What had happened to the Candace that had first observed them in the docking bay? The big man grinned at the younger girl as Jack moved closer to him. Her father's stories about the big bad Riddick much really have made an impression on her before she had been taken away from him.

"Bargained for her." He said the seemingly evil grin never leaving his face and she could see Candace growing nervous again. "She had no where to go but back here with me."

"Stop it." She chided lightly, laying a hand on his arm before moving away and sitting on the bed. He acknowledged her touch with a fleeting look but then his attention focused on the girl in the chair again, the grin gone, a look of pure seriousness on his face. Something had made him very angry, she could feel it radiating out of him like heat. "What do you mean you bargained for her? Stop talking cryptically."

"My mother's life for me." Candace said suddenly and Jack turned to look at her. It seemed that the girl had the same talent for words that her much larger friend had. Whatever she was trying to say, it didn't make much sense.

"You want to run that one by me one more time?" She asked patiently waiting to hear the whole story.

"Just what I said. That was the bargain, my mother's life for me." The muscles in the girl's jaw worked for a moment. "He put a blade to her throat. Now I belong to him. That was the deal that they made. That's why I'm back here." The look on her face was almost contemptuous.

"You don't belong to anyone kid." Riddick said slowly but purposefully.

"Oh gods!" Jack closed her eyes and shook her head slowly. "You put a shiv to that woman's throat? How do you know she's not going to say something to the Captain?"

"My mom won't. She'll be happy to be rid of me. Probably thinks that I've gone off with someone who's going to treat me hell of a lot worse then she ever would. That'll make her plenty happy." The girl shrugged trying to pretend like she didn't care.

"That doesn't explain what your business was Riddick." Jack turned slightly and looked at him again.

"Later." He said and a fleeting tenderness crossed his face that received a smile from her in return. Candace stood up as Riddick dropped a small duffle bag at her feet and moved away from the two and into the bathroom. The door shut and lock, the shower started and Candace visibly relaxed. "I'll be going now, since I don't belong to him."

"Riddick won't hurt you. I won't hurt you. No one else on this ship will hurt you." Jack said standing up and barring the doorway. "But there are rules and you're going to stay right where you are until Sam and I work out what to do with you."